


In the Wake

by 27noir



Series: Mixed Magic [5]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, The Thin Veil Series - Jodi McIsaac
Genre: Crossover, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-02
Updated: 2017-01-02
Packaged: 2018-09-14 07:28:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9168391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/27noir/pseuds/27noir
Summary: “You, my friend,” Felix said to the head of dark curls sitting at the end of the bar, “are a hard man to track down.”





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is the last one, I swear. 
> 
>  
> 
> Thanks again to E for the edits on these! <3
> 
> See End Notes for a note about canon.

 

“You, my friend,” Felix said to the head of dark curls sitting at the end of the bar, “are a hard man to track down.”

Irial’s head whipped around to face him, dark eyes wide.

“Felix?!” he exclaimed. Then he laughed, setting down his drink and standing. “Felix! Heavens, it’s good to see you.”

Felix pulled him into a tight hug. When they pulled apart, Irial grinned, looking much the same as when Felix had seen him last.

“Oh,” Irial said again. “It is good to see you. It’s been a while.”

“Let me see,” Felix said, settling into a seat beside him at the bar. “What, Ireland was it? 1979? Or was it ’78?”

“Oh don’t be a tosser, we both know it was 1980. I don’t think anyone will forget that trip.” Irial laughed, nudging Felix with his shoulder. He was all smiles and Felix wanted to kiss him right there at the bar. He resisted the urge.

“It was a good trip,” Felix agreed. “We had some good company.”

Irial chuckled. “That we did.”

The smile slid from his face.

“I saw Sirius again,” he said. “Just once, maybe eight years ago. He…” Irial sighed. “Oh, Felix, I’ve never seen anyone is such a state. I thought he was just some stray mutt on the beach. I think he’d forgotten how to change back. He spent three days as a dog before he remembered who he was and what had happened. Not that that made much sense to me, but I did my best to patch him up. I wish you’d have been there, though. Maybe you’d have known how to help him.”

The euphoria of finding Irial again was beginning to fade as Felix remembered in part why he was here. He’d been searching for Irial for almost two years. Remus had been dead for nearly three now, Sirius five.

He had figured Irial would want to know. That had been his reasoning for this trip: find Irial so he can deliver the bad news in person.

Right. Sure.

Not that it wasn’t true, he did think Irial would want to know what had happened to the two young men that had stumbled upon them two decades ago. And it wasn’t something he wanted to relay in a letter, if a letter could be found to make its way to Irial, remote as he was. But really, Felix still grieved for them, and the only one who he thought would truly understand was Irial.

He hoped to find some comfort here.

“Fee?” Irial said, his face drawn with worry at Felix’s silence. “What do you know?”

Felix’s heart sank. There was no easy way to say this.

“They’re dead, Irial. Sirius— _Remus_ —both of them. They’re dead.”

Irial just stared at him, eyes wide and unusually lit. For half a moment Felix thought he was about to cry.

Instead he half turned away, a palm pressed to his mouth.

“Fuck,” Felix heard him say very softly. “Oh, God, no.”

But Irial turned back to him in anguish. “When? _How?”_

Felix told what him he knew. He told Irial about Edinburgh, about the turmoil in Remus and Sirius’ world, about the wars—both theirs and his own people’s—, about the last time he had seen them. He told Irial everything.

“They died fighting,” Irial said, when he was done. He sounded angry. “They died not knowing if they fought in vain.” He looked sick. “They were so young.”

“They didn’t look it anymore, but I know what you mean,” Felix said with a sigh. “We’ve lived longer than most, but the two of them seemed to have aged to compensate. They—“ Felix gave a weak and bitter laugh. “They deserved so much more.”

Irial squeezed his hand where it lay between them on the bar.

“Hey,” he said. “Do you want to get out of here for a bit? I could use some fresh air.”

“Yeah,” Felix said heavily. “So could I.”

They stepped out into the brisk autumn night, still pulling on their jackets in their haste to get outside. Irial’s coat and gloves were well worn and Felix made a mental note to see about getting him something warmer with winter coming on.

“Where are you staying these days?” he asked.

Irial tightened his scarf under his chin as they began to walk. “Currently, an abandoned shack off the coast. There used to be a pod of selkies in the area, but it seems they’ve moved on. I’ll probably head inland with the weather, though. How’d you find me, anyway?”

Felix gave a wry smile. “Been combing all of Ireland for you. I happened to run into one of your sisters in Dublin, who said she’d heard you’d been with the pixies. They said you’d gone ages ago, and pointed me rather vaguely in this direction.”

“So you’ve been, what, poking your head in every pub in every little seaside town down the coast in hopes of spotting me?”

“Something like that.”

Irial laughed softly. “I admire your commitment to the task. Sorry I’ve been such a pain to find.”

“But worth the hardship,” Felix said, lacing his fingers through Irial’s, who had color rising on his pale cheeks. “Though, I do think we ought to go about getting you an email address or a postal box or something.”

“Email?” Irial inquired. “If that has something to do with computers, I should warn you I’m rather hopeless.”

“Maybe a postal box then,” Felix said with a frown. _In case I need to find you again,_ he thought.

Irial just gave him a puzzled smile.

They walked rather aimlessly for a while, catching up, until Irial began to shiver and Felix tugged him back the way they had come, back toward his hotel room, and the bottle of whiskey he’d been lugging around since Dublin, and warmth.

His room was barely warmer than it had been outside when they got there, though. The whiskey helped. They situated themselves on the bed against the headboard, pillows piled and Felix with his arm around Irial’s waist.

For a while they said nothing, drinking in comfortable, albeit slightly saddened, silence.

“Does one ever get used to it?” Irial asked. “Death, I mean. We go on living, while all the mortals we’ve known die, whether from sickness or injury or old age. And we just watch them go. I come back to towns and places I’ve been to and no one is ever the same.” Irial turned to fix his dark eyes in question on Felix. “Do you ever get used to it? Or are we just supposed keep feeling the hurt of it, every time?”

“It hurts like this every time,” Felix said with a shake of his head. He sighed. “And I don’t want to get used to it. I’d rather feel the pain of every loss than reach a point where I don’t feel anything for anyone anymore.”

But Irial frowned at him.

“You don’t sound like you mean that,” he said softly. “I’m not saying you’re wrong. You just… don’t sound like you believe what you’re saying.”

Felix looked away. Then he set aside his drink, before shuffling his position on the bed. He tucked his nose into Irial’s neck, pulled him close around the waist, and settled there, avoiding Irial’s look of surprise.

But Irial just huffed lightly, nestling his chin on the top of Felix’s head and combing his thin fingers through his hair.

“Yeah,” Irial said. “I miss them too.”

“Irial,” Felix said after a moment. “Do you ever wonder if we should take things more seriously?”

Irial’s fingers stilled from where they were playing with Felix’s hair.

“How do you mean?”

“I mean, _us_. Do you ever wonder if we shouldn’t be…” Felix sighed, pushing his nose against Irial’s shoulder in chagrin. “I don’t know… More committed?”

Irial pulled Felix up to look at him with firm hands. And then he just stared at him and stared at him. He did so with such an unreadable expression, Felix began to wonder if he might dump him off the bed and leave.

Instead, at last, Irial laughed.

“Oh, Fee,” he said, sobering up a little, and stroking his thumb over Felix’s cheek with a fond smile. “What brought this on?”

Felix blinked at him, having been completely serious about the suggestion. He pushed himself back up to sitting, swiping his hair from his face.

“I just think about Remus and Sirius and how little time they actually had together. And I wonder if it’s right to be so casual about this. Is it okay to be so flippant about a relationship when they fought so hard to just be together?”

Irial’s eyebrows curved upward, though he looked mildly amused. “Is ‘flippant’ the word you’d use for our relationship?”

Felix made a non-committal noise and avoided his gaze.

Irial sighed, and tugged lightly on his chin to look at him again.

“I’m not saying I’m rejecting the idea, Felix, just…” He paused, eyes searching Felix’s face. “Would you really be alright with it? It’s not like your people are particularly fond of me and my kind.”

“I’m fond of you. I’m more than fond of you. Isn’t that what matters?”

“You know what I’m getting at, Felix. We could spend the rest of our time together, but I doubtfully would be welcome in your circles, and you couldn’t stay away from them forever.”

Felix let his head fall to Irial’s shoulder.

“Sod them,” he said without much conviction.

“No,” Irial said rather firmly, scratching Felix’s head lightly. “Don’t ‘sod them’. I know you won’t. And it’s fine that you don’t. They are important to you.”

Irial paused.

“What was so wrong with the way things have been, anyway?” he asked, so soft into Felix’s hair that Felix nearly didn’t hear him.

Felix made a vague noise from where he had his face tucked against Irial’s neck.

“I’m serious, Fee,” Irial said, voice still soft but with much more conviction. “What part of how we’ve worked this relationship for so long isn’t working for you anymore?”

Felix didn’t answer.

“Because I, for one, have very little complaints on the whole,” Irial said good-naturedly. “We have a good time when we’re together. We respect each other. And we both know eventually we’ll go back to doing our own things for a while. And I at least never resent you leaving. I know I’ll see you again. I miss you often, but I know you’ll find me. You always do.”

Irial pressed his face to the top of Felix’s head.

“Who says we have to be together all the time to care about each other?”

Irial’s fingers coaxed at Felix’s cheeks to have him look him in the eye.

“But that’s not what this is really about, is it?” Irial said, voice kind. He stroked Felix’s cheek with his thumb again. “Fee,” he said, with a small huff. “It’s okay to admit that you need someone to take care of you for a while.”

Felix looked at him warily.

“That is, I assume, what all this meandering has been about?” Irial said with a small smile.

Felix sighed, and hid his face again, but only for a moment. “I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself,” he muttered.

“You’re also completely capable of acting like a tosser because you’re can’t admit you might need someone for once, instead of the other way around,” Irial said, but with an increasing amount of affection.

Felix looked up at him again.

“Have I been a complete tosser?”

“A little bit, maybe.” But Irial smiled.

Felix rolled to lay on his back. He pressed his hands to his face, dragging them down on a heavy exhale. After a moment he turned back to Irial, who was watching him.

Felix touched his face with his fingertips. “When did you get to be such a sage?” he asked softly.

Irial grinned and shrugged.

“We’ve only been doing this a couple hundred years or so…”

“Irial,” Felix said, feeling rather tired suddenly. “I think I need someone to take care of me for a while.”

The Unseen’s smile softened and he leaned down and kissed Felix tenderly.

“Took you long enough,” he said. “I could tell the moment I saw you this evening.”

Felix kissed him back. “You don’t mind?”

Irial shook his head, but sat up a little. “But I won’t have you sitting around feeling sorry for yourself. Be as depressed as you like, but I won’t abide moping. Fair?”

“Fair,” Felix said with a smile.

“Come here,” Irial said, tugging Felix close. Felix shifted, pressing their foreheads together. Irial threaded his fingers through his hair once more and touched his nose to Felix’s before kissing him again.

“What do you need?” Irial asked.

“I…” Felix said, not sure of the answer to that question. He kissed Irial again, realizing what a fool he’d been. “Just this,” he said. “Just you.”

“Well, that’s all I’ve got to give anyway,” Irial said with a smile.

 

\--

 

When they parted again, it was autumn once more.

Felix watched Irial adjust his scarf against the chill. Irial smiled at him, breath coming out in small burst of fog.

“Have you got everything?” Felix asked.

Irial hummed. “I think so.” He slung his pack over his shoulder, his sparse belongings inside, before drawing Felix in close. He pressed their noses together.

“Take care of yourself, alright?” Irial said. “And come find me when you need me.”

“Same to you,” Felix said, holding him close. “Have fun.”

Irial smiled at him, and Felix returned it.

They kissed one last time, and then Irial walked off down the street, off to have his own adventures for a while.

Felix watched him go, steady with a sense of peace and a trust that all things were going to be alright once more. Then he picked up his bag and headed home.

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> A note about canon:
> 
> I believe I have, to the best of my ability, stayed true to the Harry Potter canon, in so far as times and dates.
> 
> The Thin Veil, on the other hand, I royally mucked up. And while it doesn't not particularly pertain to this story, the basis of this series does not fit with the Thin Veil canon. So consider this an AU, if you like. Or a headcanon. I just hope my lack of canon compliance doesn't ruin the story for you.


End file.
